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Tag Archives: non fiction picture book
i am justice: sonia sotomayor + sotomayor quotes
I am Sonia Sotoymayor by Brad Meltzer, illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulous (2018) is part of the “Ordinary People Change the World” series that highlights incredible individuals in a comic book biography format for kid readers.
This picture book highlights Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor.
It covers her childhood in New York City, her Puerto Rican family, and the injustices she could already see around her. First, she wanted to be a detective like Nancy Drew, but felt like her diabetes would hinder her. Then she wanted to be a judge like Perry Mason. She was valedictorian of her high school class and attended Princeton, a place where she took refuge in books. In 2009, after a career as a prosecutor and a federal judge in New York, she was nominated by Barack Obama and sworn into the Supreme Court, becoming the first Latina Supreme Court Justice.
Because Sotomayor is such an inspiration, I thought I’d share with you some inspiring photos and quotes to celebrate her as a force for justice.
Sonia Sotomayor has also written a book for kids, in her own words: Turning Pages by Sonia Sotomayor, illustrated by Lulu Delacre (2018). I’ll leave you with quotes from that one about books and reading, the through line of her life story.
cover reveal! the diamond and the boy
The Diamond and the Boy: The Creation of Diamonds and the Life of H. Tracy Hall written by Hannah Holt, illustrated by Jay Fleck, will be out October 2nd, 2018, and today we’re sharing the cover with you!
I met the author, Hannah Holt, at the wonderful Green Bean Books in Portland, and that’s when I first heard about and was intrigued by this project featuring the inventor of human-made diamonds.
“The Diamond & The Boy is a two-tale picture book—a side-by-side telling of the story of natural diamond creation and the life of inventor Tracy Hall [who invented a machine to create human-made diamonds for manufacturing]. This book shows how journeys can triumph over beginnings and how one person can rock the world.”
Yes, this is the biography of the person who invented lab-created diamonds, the kind first used for industrial cutting uses. It’s simultaneously the biography of a natural diamond and its formation.
Told inventively and lyrically, each page is split into two sides, one about the boy, and one about the diamond. Their sections parallel in that they both start with the same word or phrase, and they continue to mirror one another thematically in how both the graphite and the boy experience “heat,” “pressure,” “waiting,” and other concepts in different ways as their journeys progress, together. You’ll just have to read it to see how stunning and smart it is!
There’s also back matter with not only more about Tracy Hall‘s life, but about the history of lab-made diamonds as well as natural diamonds including, briefly, the colonization and conflict surrounding them, which is important to be informed of in any discussion of those precious rocks.
And Hannah’s going to tell us a little more about it!
But first, here’s the cover! I love the bold, graphic illustration and the emanating quality of those shining lines. Plus, the pencils in the boy’s pocket—an essential for an inventor!
This Picture Book Life: What is your particular connection to the subject matter of THE DIAMOND AND THE BOY?
Hannah Holt: The boy in this story, Tracy Hall, is my grandfather. I first heard his story as a small child in my mother’s arms. Whenever I visited Grandpa Hall’s home, I loved looking at the models of diamond presses. This story has been beating in my heart for as long as I can remember.
TPBL: Please tell us about your reaction to seeing the cover for the first time, and the illustrations throughout. What’s a detail that surprised or delighted you to see?
HH: When I first saw the cover, my heart just sang. The bold lines, the way the colors popped—I loved everything about it.
Seeing this story illustrated was an amazing experience. Jay’s work is stunning. In addition to the beauty of the work, I was delighted to see he had illustrated some of Tracy’s childhood inventions and made them scientifically accurate. An attentive visual reader could possibly recreate them as DIY projects!
TPBL: What was the process of deciding to tell the story by way of parallels—the diamond’s journey and the boy’s side by side?
HH: A couple of years ago, I received a particularly lengthy rejection letter. It went above and beyond listing the deficiencies of my work and launched right into my obvious personal flaws as well.
A few days later, I stood in the children’s section at Powell’s Books when the words of this rejection letter started ringing in my head. I thought, “What am I doing? I’m a nobody. What could I possibly add to all this?”
At that moment, it felt like all the air was being sucked out of the room, and I had to sit in one of the children’s chairs. After I finally caught my breath, I left the store and decided to leave writing, too.
For the next month, I didn’t write a thing. Instead, I did a lot of soul searching. In the end, I came to the following conclusions:
1.) I liked writing and missed it.
2.) I couldn’t control whether or not anyone else liked my writing.
3.) I could improve my craft.
4.) I could become smarter about how and where I submitted my work.
This story, THE DIAMOND AND THE BOY, was one of the first stories I revised after my writing break. Previously, I had tried writing the story about Tracy’s cleverness or rocks that sparkle, but those ideas no longer seemed important.
Instead, I saw the need for…resilience.
Graphite needed to become resilient…
Tracy had to become resilient…
And I needed to get over myself, too, if I wanted to write this story well. So I threw out all my old drafts and started from scratch. Writing a story in parallel about change and resilience seemed natural because it was the journey I was on myself.
I set a goal that year to get 100 rejections. I didn’t make that goal. However, that’s only because I signed with my fabulous agent first, and we had the good fortune to start selling books shortly thereafter. Embracing rejection led me to so much more success than resisting it. This story—this experience—fundamentally changed how I view challenges.
TPBL: I’ve read the manuscript and those side-by-side spreads are like beautiful poetry. Will you describe the process of pairing non-fiction subject matter with poetic text and how that developed?
HH: I’ve always liked poetry and playing with words, but Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming had the biggest influence on this revision. Her lyrical narrative, purposeful line breaks, and masterful storytelling inspired me to push my own writing further.
Initially I wrote one stanza of rock, and then one stanza of Tracy. Rock, Tracy, Rock, Tracy… I didn’t map it out ahead of time. They lined up naturally. Of course, I had to do many revisions—tightening the language, refining the storyline, and making sure I had enough page breaks—but my first side-by-side draft flowed easily.
TPBL: What’s something fascinating you learned while researching this book?
HH: Oh, so many fun little things! I learned new scientific tidbits, like you need as much pressure to make diamonds as a hippo balancing on the head of a pin.
But for me the most fun was getting to know my grandfather better. For example, I learned he was once smitten with a girl named Catherine. Catherine is not my grandmother’s name.It was also interesting to read about the poverty he experienced in his matter-of-fact terms. Like, he joined the ROTC so he would have something free to wear. Two meals a day was enough to survive. Underwear was mostly optional clothing.
Reading about his life in his own words, before he became “Tracy Hall the famous scientist” was one of my favorite experiences. I would encourage children and teens to keep a journal. Someday the present will be the past, and personal histories are a way to keep time ever-fresh.
Big thanks to Hannah, for sharing about her writing process and the book with us, and to Balzer & Bray for the cover image!
feathers: not just for flying + handmade book craft from avery and augustine
Feathers: Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart, illustrated by Sarah S. Brannen (2014).
Birds are the only animals with those special plumes. But did you know that feathers have many other functions besides flying? I’d never thought about it before, but this book brings just that to light.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
Feathers keep warm. Feathers cushion like a pillow. They provide shade or float or clean or hide. Feathers are incredible, no?
Along the way, kid readers will learn a lot about specific kinds of birds, perhaps one or two they’ve seen before in person!
Big thanks to Charlesbridge for images!
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When I think of kids books and stylish, beautiful photos, I immediately think of Michelle at Avery and Augustine. And she’s joining me here to share a handmade book craft that has a learning bonus. Over to Michelle!
Hi, I’m Michelle of Avery and Augustine. Thank you to Danielle for inviting me to collaborate on this post! I’m excited to share a simple project to go along with this wonderful book. My daughter Avery and I made our own little feather book to summarize what she learned from Feathers. Summarizing is an important academic and life skill that helps children recall the salient information from what they read in their own words and in a way that’s meaningful for them. This is a skill that they will use time and time again throughout their school years and especially when they hit high school and college.
To make the book, cut one piece of card stock and several sheets of paper in half, lengthwise. Fold them in half and punch holes along the fold of your pages (a group of pages is called a signature or section in bookbinding). We used this Fiskars 1/8 inch circle hand punch tool. You can also use a regular-sized hole punch to make it easier for young children to do the sewing on their own.
Cut a piece of yarn and wrap one end of it with tape to make it easier to pull through the holes. Sew the yarn through the holes of the book, using a simple stitch. Tie a knot at the top hole of the book, stitch your way down, then stitch your way back up, filling in the blank gaps. Tie a knot at the last hole to secure the yarn. Cut out feathers from colored paper (I did it freehand, no template) and attach them to the front of the book.
When we were done making our book, Avery paraphrased the important points from Feathers and drew pictures for each. It’s good to practice summarizing books regularly and it gets easier the more you do it! If you need another reference, a great DIY book tutorial can be found on this blog.
You can see Michelle’s work and read about her two young children and their first forays in cooking, art, and everything in between at Avery and Augustine.
the blue whale by jenni desmond
The Blue Whale by Jenni Desmond (out May 27, 2015!)
This is one of those nonfiction books whose facts somehow make me cry. It’s partly the set up in the author’s note that blue whales are few in number due to human activity, from hunting to pollution. But it’s not just that. It’s the way this material is handled—from how the text is constructed to the dreamy illustrations.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
Part of Jenni Desmond‘s originality is how the story appears in the story of the picture book. The boy in the book is reading the very book we’re reading.
But there’s more! He enters the book. There he is, in a dinghy next to a mighty blue whale, staring down in wonder. Because this book is immersive. Immersive in the azure world of the blue whale.
The boy with the red crown is excited about this book he’s reading, excited about blue whales, excited about animals and habitats.
“Every blue whale has unique markings, similar to our fingerprints. Scientists use these, along with the shape of the dorsal fin, to identify individual whales.”
Together with the boy, we learn that baby calves are born 20 feet long and drink nearly 50 gallons of their mother’s milk every day. That whales have a lot of wax in their ear canals. That a single one of their breaths could inflate 2,000 balloons.
Along with the boy, we feel the world open up. It gets bigger and the blue whale gets smaller. Closer. More precious to us.
“A blue whale’s tongue weighs three tons, and its mouth is so big that 50 people can stand inside it. Fortunately, blue whales don’t eat people.”
And that’s how this book works. It brings the boy character inside it, it brings us inside it and conversely it brings the blue whale into our world, right outside our window and in our kitchen.
It’s the perfect kind of nonfiction book that educates while it enchants. It makes us care.
Thanks to Enchanted Lion Books for images!
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Jenni Desmond was kind enough to answer a couple of questions about her process of making the book!
This Picture Book Life:What prompted you to write a book about this particular animal?
Jenni Desmond: I didn’t choose a blue whale on purpose, it chose me, by just falling out of my head onto the page one day. Then, the more I drew this beautiful mammal the more I fell in love with it. There is still so much we don’t know about blue whales. I just found them endlessly fascinating and beautiful, and kept wanting to know more. When I showed the rough sketches to my wonderful editor, Claudia, at Enchanted Lion Books, she understood my vision for the book and tirelessly helped me to sculpt it into something much more complex and interesting.
TPBL: You include the book itself in the text and illustrations. How did the idea to do that come about?
JD: I wanted the reader to be aware of the fictional element of the story versus the factual. By having the young boy holding and reading the book, I felt that it would mean that there was a clear divide between the two. The facts could stay as facts, and the reader knew that the inclusion of the boy in the images, when he was interacting with the whale, was purely a result of the boy’s vivid imagination.
TPBL: Boy with red graph paper crown. Go!
JD: I think sometimes non-fiction can feel quite dense and difficult, so I hope that by including the boy, the reader can have a little bit of respite to digest the information while they watch the boy having fun, hopefully even seeing themselves in the boy. I‘m not sure why he’s wearing a crown. Why not. Maybe he’s the king of the book. Maybe he likes dressing up. Maybe it’s just a nice shape and gives a splash of colour to the page. Maybe it’s all of these things.
Thank you, Jenni, both for the interview and for this outstanding book!
the red piano, picture book
The Red Piano by Andrê Leblanc and Barroux (2010).
There aren’t a ton of picture books about The Cultural Revolution in China, but as China’s history fascinates me, I was very happy to find The Red Piano.
It’s an incredible book about a young girl, a re-education camp, and the piano that connects her to memories of her old life, to freedom.
(click image(s) to enlarge)
“For several years now, pages from Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier have been passed round the camp, from hand to hand. The father of a friend sends parcels. Several sheets are hidden in each package. If there is an inspection, they are confiscated and she has to hope for another package.”
There is a piano, miraculously, hidden in the camp. Music is what helps the girl survive. Remember. Feel human, feel hope.
One day, she’s discovered, and punished. “The music in her heart subsides.” Until, another day, it is all over.
The illustrations are bleakly beautiful. Stark. Cream paper, ink gray, bleeding bursts of red.
The story is inspired by concert pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei‘s true story.
You may also want to check out the middle grade memoir, Red Scarf Girl, which covers the same historical period.
